Well on first viewing... That was really, really bad... Lots of random and unnecessary crap. Why didn't Moffat just kill the Doc at the end of a normal story instead of involving all this timey-wimey rubbish and aging him.

To be honest, I understood none of it anyway, so I'm going to have to watch it again to fully formulate an opinion. But, as I said, on first viewing, this wasn't great at all. Only good bit was Capaldi at the end, although I didn't like the fact that his regeneration literally lasted half a second as he *ZAPPED* suddenly into his new body. Oh! I loved Handles, too! I hope he makes a return!

I voted that it was "Okay". It did a decent enough job of tying up the plots of Eleven's run while maintaining a theme of "Ending the Fairy Tale". To that end I was glad to see Amy once more, as she really was the tether to Eleven's mythos.

Problem I had with it was it basically skips over all the haberdashery with The Name of the Doctor. Also it retcons away the Silents completely - even if the Silents we had seen previously were renegades as we were told they were, Clara still should have instinctively tried to kill them when she saw them (Unless we're to assume she's never seen the moon landing).

Finally, it builds up this massive organization - this Church of the Mainframe - while completely ignoring a pre-existing organization in the Shadow Council.

It was definitely grand in scale and ambition (The Time Lords are essentially the Crack) and it ends the Fairy Tale by the Doctor growing old (Love how they made Smith look like Hartnell in the end). It falls flat on the execution. It's just...meh. It ignores its own implied rules involving the Time Lords - that they would be frozen in a instant of time in another universe. But then again, these are masters of space and time so maybe a little leeway is to be expected...but they can control the cracks? I didn't mind the idea that the Time Lords gave the Doctor a brand new set of regenerations - that's been established as something they are very capable of doing - but the crack materializing in the sky? Excessive and pointless.

Something felt just a bit off. This was Moffat wrapping up a lot of plot threads, so it was just a lot of, "Oh, that's how Silence Fell When The Question Was Asked," "That's how the Doctor's going to keep regenerating," "That's how the TARDIS blew up over three years ago." As they say, an answer is never as interesting as the question. I feel like Moffat was forced to wrap all these up. Pity it was Matt's final story. I would have loved to see him go out in a blaze of glory, rather than an old man causing an earth-shattering explosion.

I voted good. I actually thought it was an interesting take on a regeneration story. Following from Day of the Doctor, it does feel slightly anti-climactic. It's a much smaller scale story in a lot of ways, and I'm sure that was intentional.

I really enjoyed the bit of fun between Clara and the 11th Doctor. I'm not quite sure I've warmed to Clara as an actual "real" person yet. She still feels too much like a template of the "perfect" companion. But, there's no denying she can be a lot of fun.

Spoiler:

When the action moves to Trenzalore and the Papal Mainframe, the structure of the story gets a bit weird. There's a lot of time spent with Tasha Lem and lots of futzing about, which I felt could have been better served developing the town of Christmas and the Doctor's connection with it a bit more. The quick gallop through his time (with Tasha's voice over) there did a pretty good job of showing his connection to the people, as well as the business with Barnable. But Clara comes and then she goes and then she comes back again. It's like little pieces of story in fits and starts. It might have been nicer to somehow FEEL the years passing and the constant struggle the Doctor is undertaking. But, because of the Christmas theme, until the very end there's something that feels very safe and cozy and drama-free about the Doctor's time in the town called Christmas. For this reason, you're left with a feeling that "The Name of the Doctor" wrote a check that "Time" couldn't quite cash as far as there being a feeling of an epic battle taking place here.

The answers to the questions that have been built up over the years are, frankly, a bit lame in some cases. "Oh, that was just some splinter group and they tried to blow up the TARDIS and prevent you from getting to Trenzalore." I don't know... I was just hoping for more. The fact they were trying to stop the Time Lords from returning (and that the Time Lords were on the other side of the crack) is pretty interesting, I suppose. It all seemed to fit together well enough. The revelation the Silence are actually priests was interesting as well!

But, after all of this, I did find the ultimate end pretty interesting. That this Doctor just gets old (we're never really told how long he was on Trenzalore - more than 300 years! He might have lived as long as the First Doctor or more!) was actually very touching in a lot of ways. How great is Matt Smith? So wonderful. I loved his send-off of Handles the Cyberhead. Not every actor could sell that moment. I liked that the Time Lords gave him (if nothing else) a new set of regenerations, though it seems like it really threw away the opportunity to do something a bit more interesting with it. I think, essentially, it was Moffat's way of saying "Eh, this stuff doesn't matter, let's move on." It was pretty simple (Clara just asked nicely!) but it did fit the whole fairy tale theme of the episode.

It was a SLIGHT bit of a cop-out that a young Doctor gets to make the actual regeneration, but I'll take it! The bits with Amelia and then Amy at the end... I totally cried when Amy came back to say goodbye.

I feel like we got even less of 12 than we did of 11 when we first saw him! I didn't love that Moffat cribbed and tweaked 11's first lines about legs. I would have rather had 12 say something a bit more distinctive. But the line about whether Clara knew how to fly the TARDIS or not was fun.

Was it a triumph, like Day of the Doctor? I don't think so, but I thought it was still very enjoyable.

Jonwes has pretty much summed up my thoughts. And I think there were just too many loose threads to try to wrap up in one story. Frankly, I am just glad they are done. Jenna and Matt are terrific together. I hope she has the same chemistry with Peter. But, now the next question I have to ask is....How did Gallifrey get unfrozen and in another universe to try to get through the crack?

But, now the next question I have to ask is....How did Gallifrey get unfrozen and in another universe to try to get through the crack?

Well, when the Doctor "froze" them in a moment of time, he shunted Gallifrey into another universe. So that's how it got there. They did explicitly state that in Day of the Doctor. But, the nature of "frozen" is strange. As we saw in "Day," the people in the slice of time are not actually frozen. 10, 11 and the War Doctor were able to move in the painting to escape, as did the Zygons. I think it's perhaps better to say that a little, tiny slice of time is captured. So, perhaps, actually there is a few minutes here or there they can operate within.

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Subject: Re: S7E16: The Time of the Doctor [2013 Christmas Ep] (SPOILERS) Today at 1:23 pm